My tiny, healthy, L.A. actress of a sister always does these 9 day cleanses that she's swears by.

Not only does it clean out the gunk in her "pipes" apparently, it drops lbs. and inches in a hurry. I decided I wanted to do it after hearing some horrible commercial on the radio about how we're all carrying pounds of waste on our intestine walls. Anyone else heard that one? It freaked me out.

I see it in everything around me; I see it in everything.

"the longer i live, the more faith i have in Providence, and the less faith i have in my interpretation of Providence." -- jeremiah day

 i am sitting in a cozy, familiar home with some folks from my church community. it's my family; these are the people i live with, walk with, talk to, worship with, confide in, am accountable to, and love.love.love. i am sitting in this comfortable time and place with my loving family, and we are discussing where God has been evident in our lives, communities, and hearts recently. while, yes -- i am listening, but all i am really thinking about is how comfortable i am. quite -- that is.

but this comfort is seemingly gratuitous in my life. in the past months, i've been tousled about by the holidays, unemployment, familial straits, confusing transitions in friendships and relationships... you know : life. but i thought, "wow. God has really provided." no, i haven't had the income-cashflow to pay my rent for the past 3 months, but somehow -- when it needed to be -- it was always there. am i saying that i have a magical, piñata Jesus that fills up my bank account? no (but that would be awesome); but i am privy to the way trusting has changed my life, and the provision that my life has seen from that trust.

then the conversation shifted.

I admit it… I am a  BIT compulsive. Is that a little like being a little BIT pregnant? Also, I am a bit ADD or ADHD, whatever is the currently P.C. acronym…Here's the deal. Although I am a confirmed adrenaline junkie, there is a part of me that  LOVES  having the opportunity to hyper focus on otherwise boring, monotonous activities like… Painting! Painting walls and trim,  that is. While painting, one can really focus on the details: carefully  coating every inch evenly, enjoying the precise beauty of  crisp straight lines, the slip-slap of the brush and the squak of the roller.  Just like,  I simarly LOVE  losing myself icing a cake, or writing a late-night blog. Everyday life is SO hectic, so mentally  LOUD, that it almost feels like a luxury to lose yourself in thought, while  performing some singular-focus mundane activity.

"When bad things happen to good people…"

A passive statement, isn’t it?  Often, bad things DO happen to good people,  but  just as often, good people make bad decisions and use poor judgment. With every bad choice we make, there was a millisecond we teetered on the edge, a millisecond when we could have chosen the other option. Often, we have the ability to STOP situations before they go too far, but do not. Forget about sin, what about temptation?  Ever since Eve got close enough to the tree,  where the forbidden fruit hung sooooooo temptingly. She was already GONE, before she took the first bite. After all, it’s human nature.

I'm a sucker for all things sweet.  I've also increasingly been a fan of all things Southern.  The Ithaca winter is threatening to seep into my too-pale flesh, and Southern sweets fill my cold belly just right.  I found this red velvet cupcake recipe a few years back, and my friends always ask to borrow it.  In order to keep the love flown', I thought I'd post the recipe -- unless you're unlike me and your mama will actually give you her hand-me-down recipes.  My mom is hoarding the family recipes until I graduate in the spring.  She thinks that my roommates will steal them when I'm not looking "and then there will be people in Rhode Island making my great-great-aunt's poundcake!!" 

Really.  So until my mom pries her cute little fingers from the family recipe book, I'll have to make do with other people's handouts.  This little gem comes courtesy of Beth Pilar and Ellen Sternau, owners of the Manhattan bakery How Sweet It Is.  Deliciously easy! 

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Cupcakes

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

 I Just overheard my roommate say to her husband, "I just don't get the whole rose thing, it's weird" he responded, "Thanks to Seals' 1993 hit 'Kissed by a rose on the grave' he ruined roses for everyone, including you."  I then immediately posted this update on my facebook status.  Some quotes are too good to be left in the open air and then forgotten.  Some quotes are so good, I have to keep them to myself.

Today as we were packing items for our up-coming move, we came across a beautiful turn-of- the-century chemise on a padded satin hanger, hanging in the back of our closet. The garment was intricately constructed , with what seemed like one hundred tiny, fabric-covered  buttons, and a silk pleated ruffle. The vintage fabric, a fine linen  or cotton, displayed a petite floral design. woven into the sheer fabric. It was a tiny garment, made for someone very petite, and was always much too small for me to ever consider wearing; the fitted waist tapered down to only 12 or 13” wide. The sight of it brought back memories, and a shared smile, between my husband and I. “What is THAT?”, asked our teenage son, pilfering through the piles of items pulled from the closet.

“Do you remember us talking about our friend Lyndal?”, said my husband. “This belonged to her. She made it for her wedding night.” 

So many of my friends here on Skirt! and so many friends, in general,  have lost someone they love this year. (I hear you  and  my heart aches with and for you,  too… Em, Elizabeth, “Clewis”…all of my new Skirt! friends.) Whether death came suddenly, or if it was expected, there is no negating the void in your life resulting from the loss of this person.  Losing is losing, and I don’t mean to discount those of you who have lost other important things like homes, jobs or your income, but hey- those things will come and go. I hope for you, I truly do, that they WILL come again. You’ve got to believe that. We all do. Have faith!

My cousin (you know who you are) was visiting one summer in high school and said to me, "Did you know,  if you can hold a pencil under your boobs than they are going to sag when you're old."  I grabbed a hairbrush and it stayed just fine, I had proven my point.  She continued to say, "Well, I want just enough boob, not enough to clog a toilet!" Point taken. I would gladly pass the pencil test.  

To celebrate Julia's (roommate #3) January birthday she requested that we go camping.  January camping? We made it happen on the 2nd North Carolina snow storm of the year. 

Our boys (4 total) transformed our living room into a giant tent with 7 pillows and a sign above reading, "Julia's Castle" The fire was boasting of the mens work with camping chairs bowing in admiration. Christmas lights were draped from the ceiling and the laptop (hidden in the corner) had a loop soundtrack of a summer night insect orchestra.  The final touch? S'mores over the open fire.  

This is my life in community.  At about midnight we all climbed into "bed" with the insect orchestra still playing. We talked until each of us dropped off into sleep.  At one point I thought to myself, "SHUT THE WINDOW, those bugs are so damn loud!" Needless to say, being snowed in this weekend was a perfect time for us to retreat into "Julia's Castle" where community living went to the next level.  And I remembered why I sleep on space foam and not the floor.

If you think this is weird.  By all means, I agree.  However, I think you're jealous.  After all, we were 10 again. Well, almost.  This time we drank.

Question: Should Brett Favre retire?
My Answer: No

Okay, this isn’t the most appropriate forum to talk about football. But I want to look at the bigger question. When should you leave something you love? For those who’ve never seen even five minutes of Sports Center, Brett Favre is the NFL quarterback who has retired during the last 3 off seasons but always changes his mind before the season kicks off. He was a Green Bay Packer for sixteen seasons (Go Pack! Go!). Then he became a Jet. Then he became a Viking.  And last Sunday his Vikings lost to the Saints in overtime. He was one game away from the Super Bowl. AGAIN.

I’m not a sports analyst, but I’ve listen to plenty during the playoffs that claim Brett Favre had one of his best seasons ever. (I have an engineering degree yet don’t understand what a quarterback rating is.) So why would Brett retire now? Is it simply to go out at the top of his game? You could argue he was really two wins away from going out on top. Is Brett at home in Mississippi wiping his hands clean and saying “that’s as good as it gets”?

Question: Would I want my husband to remarry if I died?
My Answer: No

Here’s a personal statistic. Of all the divorced couples I know, the man is always the first to remarry.  It’s funny, because women in their mid to late 20’s are often depicted as marriage-hungry. Not so for the 20-something male of the species. But after an unsuccessful marriage, it’s the man looking to get back into the serious relationships. I was talking about this observation with a friend and she put it this way – “Because marriage is so beneficial for men.”

The consensus among my girl friends is that if something happened to our husbands (like being killed by a wild pack of Rottweilers) most of us would not want to remarry. At least not for a few decades. It’s strange, we don’t talk about if-we-divorced, it’s always a terrible, fatal, dismembering accident. Now if something happened to me (like peacefully dying in my sleep and experiencing absolutely no pain or jumping in front of a speeding bus to save a small child – again dying immediately and experiencing no pain) would I want my husband to remarry? No.

During the past few weeks,  I  haven’t quite been able to  get a firm footing in my own life…   I am, literally, a motherless ship, adrift on the sea. It is as if, the walls are waving, the floor is shifting, and the roof is trembling. No, I’m not in Haiti. As the pendulum swings erratically, I am thrust about, my own mass,  contributing to the pandemonium.  So why, instead of drawing IN, getting myself centered,  do I flail, react, lash OUT? I get on the hamster wheel and run, run, run, in a suit and pearls… albeit, with very dark undereye circles and hair that needs cutting.